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Theater Listings: July 9 - 15, 2014

Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

The Guerrillas of Powell Street Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.bindlestiffstudio.org. $10-20. Previews Thu/10-Fri/11, 8pm. Opens Sat/12, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Aug 2. Bindlestiff Studio presents the world premiere of the English translation of Rody Vera's play about Filipino World War II veterans in San Francisco, based on Benjamin Pimentel's novel.

Hick: A Love Story, The Romance of Lorena Hickok and Eleanor Roosevelt Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.crackpotcrones.com. Free. Opens Thu/10, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through July 27. Crackpot Crones and Theatre Rhinoceros present Terry Baum in her new solo show about the relationship between the pioneering journalist and the First Lady.

Each and Every Thing Marsh San Francisco Main Stage, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through Aug 24. The latest solo show from celebrated writer-performer Dan Hoyle (Tings Dey Happen,The Real Americans) winds a more random course than usual across the country and abroad but then that's the idea — or at least Hoyle warns us, right after an opening encounter with a touchy young white supremacist, that the trip he's taking us on is a subtle one. Displaying again his exceptional gifts as a writer and protean performer, Hoyle deftly embodies a set of real-life encounters as a means of exploring the primacy and predicament of face-to-face communication in the age of Facebook. With the help of director Charlie Varon (who co-developed the piece with Hoyle and Maureen Towey), this comes across in an entertaining and swift-flowing 75-minute act that includes a witty rap about "phone zombies" and a Dylan-esque screed at a digital detox center. But the purported subject of connection, or lack there of, in our gadget-bound and atomized society is neither very original nor very deeply explored — nor is it necessarily very provocative in a theater, before an audience already primed for the live encounter. Far more interesting and central here is Hoyle's relationship with his old college buddy Pratim, an Indian American in post-9/11 America whose words are filled with laid-back wisdom and wry humor. Also intriguing is the passing glimpse of early family life in the Hoyle household with Dan's celebrated artist father, and working-class socialist, Geoff Hoyle. These relationships, rather than the sketches of strangers (albeit very graceful ones), seem the worthier subjects to mine for truth and meaning. Indeed, there's a line spoken by Pratim that could sum up the essence of Hoyle's particular art: "It's so much better," he says, "when you find yourself in other people than when you just find yourself." Hoyle's real frontier could end up being much more personal terrain, much closer to home. (Avila)

Feisty Old Jew Marsh San Francisco Main Stage, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $25-100. Sat/12-Sun/13, 5pm. Charlie Varon performs his latest solo show, a fictional comedy about "a 20th century man living in a 21st century city."

Once Curran Theatre, 445 Geary, SF; www.shnsf.com. $45-210. Wed/9-Sat/12, 8pm (also Wed/9 and Sat/12, 2pm); Sun/13, 2pm. Two musicians fall in love when they begin writing songs together in this Tony-winning musical, based on the Oscar-winning film.

Pearls Over Shanghai Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Extended through July 26. Five years ago, Thrillpeddlers breathed new life into a glitter-dusted piece of Sixties flotsam, beautifully reimagining the Cockettes' raunchy mock-operetta Pearls Over Shanghai (in collaboration with several surviving members of San Francisco's storied acid-drag troupe) and running it for a whopping 22 months. Written by Cockette Link Martin as a carefree interpretation of a 1926 Broadway play, the baldly stereotyped Shanghai Gesture, it was the perfectly lurid vehicle for irreverence in all directions. It's back in this revival, once again helmed by artistic director Russell Blackwood with musical direction by Cockette and local favorite Scrumbly Koldewyn. But despite the frisson of featuring some original-original cast members — including "Sweet Pam" Tent (who with Koldewyn also contributes some new dialogue) and Rumi Missabu (regally reprising the role of Madam Gin Sling) — there's less fire the second time around as the production straddles the line between carefully slick and appropriately sloppy. Nevertheless, there are some fine musical numbers and moments throughout. Among these, Zelda Koznofsky, Birdie-Bob Watt, and Jesse Cortez consistently hit high notes as the singing Andrews Sisters-like trio of Americans thrown into white slavery; Bonni Suval's Lottie Wu is a fierce vixen; and Noah Haydon (as the sultry Petrushka) is a class act. Koldewyn's musical direction and piano accompaniment, meanwhile, provide strong and sure momentum as well as exquisite atmosphere. (Avila)

Shit & Champagne Rebel, 1772 Market, SF; shitandchampagne.eventbrite.com. $25. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. D'Arcy Drollinger is Champagne White, bodacious blond innocent with a wicked left hook in this cross-dressing '70s-style white-sploitation flick, played out live on Rebel's intimate but action-packed barroom stage. Written by Drollinger and co-directed with Laurie Bushman (with high-flying choreography by John Paolillo, Drollinger, and Matthew Martin), this high-octane camp send-up of a favored formula comes dependably stocked with stock characters and delightfully protracted by a convoluted plot (involving, among other things, a certain street drug that's triggered an epidemic of poopy pants) — all of it played to the hilt by an excellent cast that includes Martin as Dixie Stampede, an evil corporate dominatrix at the head of some sinister front for world domination called Mal*Wart; Alex Brown as Detective Jack Hammer, rough-hewn cop on the case and ambivalent love interest; Rotimi Agbabiaka as Sergio, gay Puerto Rican impresario and confidante; Steven Lemay as Brandy, high-end calf model and Champagne's (much) beloved roommate; and Nancy French as Rod, Champagne's doomed fiancé. Sprawling often literally across two buxom acts, the show maintains admirable consistency: The energy never flags and the brow stays decidedly low. (Avila)

American Buffalo Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $32-60. Tue and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through July 20. It's hard to shake the feeling, while watching Aurora Theatre's current production, that David Mamet's name-making 1975 play, about three smalltime crooks in a Chicago junk shop, remains his best. Its lean two-act structure, the precise nonsense of its streetwise cant, and the wonderfully layered themes of loyalty, family, and tradition among a society of cannibals all come together in a feint of a plot about a heist to retrieve a certain buffalo nickel. Barbara Damashek directs a powerhouse trio of actors in the effort: a stoical but vaguely looming Paul Vincent O'Connor as Donny, the shop's owner; a sure and affecting Rafael Jordon as his half-addled young protégé Bobby; and a wired, wiry James Carpenter as Teach, the reckless loudmouth who stirs up the pot with disastrous consequences. While the first act feels a little careful in its unfolding, the second act develops grippingly, and overall the production conveys the nuances of Mamet's precise language, coiled humor, and familial drama with elegant precision. (Avila)

As You Like It Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Belle, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. Donations accepted. Opens Fri/11, 8pm. Runs in repertory Fri-Sun through Aug 10; visit website for specific performance dates and times. It's outdoor Shakespeare season in the Bay Area! Marin Shakespeare kicks off its 25th season with a classic production of the Bard's gender-bending comedy.

Nantucket Marsh Berkeley MainStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $25-100 (all tickets include a picnic dinner). Thu and Sat, 7pm. Extended through July 19. Nantucket Island, a wisp of shifting sand 30 miles off the coast of Cape Cod, Mass., is the evocative setting for this autobiographical story from writer-performer Mark Kenward — less the tourists' Nantucket of summer holidays, mind you, than the inhabitants' gray and isolated winter. And just as its bleak weather stood for the tempestuous mood of Herman Melville's Ishmael before he sets sail again in Moby Dick, so the environment for Kenward's coming-of-age darkly foreshadows a terrible downward spiral. The only son and oldest child of two in a nuclear family from Normal, Ill., that really seemed to fit the bill — complete with a dad who, "in his entire life, only missed four days of shaving" — Mark becomes the odd-boy out upon the Kenwards' relocation to the remote island. An affable, poised, physically demonstrative performer with a residual Midwestern charm, Kenward describes an upbringing in a household overshadowed by a high-strung, controlling, deeply unhappy mother who, as luck would have it, also becomes his high school English teacher. This relationship is the ground for much of the play's humor, but also a trauma that blows in like a winter squall. Directed keenly, if perhaps a little too stiffly, by Rebecca Fisher, and accompanied at points by a watery island backdrop (courtesy of video designer Alfonso Alvarez), Nantucket discharges some of its messy human themes a bit too neatly but maintains an inescapable pull. (Avila)

The Taming of the Shrew This week: Amador Valley Community Park, Santa Rita at Black, Pleasanton; www.sfshakes.org. Free. Sat/12-Sun/13, 7:30pm. Continues through Sept 21 at various Bay Area venues. Free Shakespeare in the Park presents this take on the Bard's barb-filled romance.

"Love Balm for My SpiritChild" Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through July 20. $10-25. Brava! For Women in the Arts and Arielle Julia Brown's Love Balm Project present this choreo-play based on testimonies from Bay Area mothers who have lost children to gun violence.

"Theatresports: Battle to Play LA!" Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, SF; www.improv.org. Fri, 8pm. Through July 25. $20. The BATS Main Stage Company splits into teams and competes to see who will represent SF at an improv competition against a group from LA.